Flexible like clay

The nervous system is made for change and prepared for it. Every brain begins as a relatively unstructured but highly flexible network of neurons. It has the ability to wire itself in the best way to adapt to its unique environment. Without this property, not only our athletic abilities but also our cognitive skills and our essence as humans would be rigid and unchangeable. Everything we think, feel, perceive, and how we act originates in the nervous system. This is also true for everything related to athletic performance. Our motor skills are coordinated through the nervous system, and the effects of training are based on stable neuroplastic changes. Therefore, it is worthwhile to delve deeper into this topic and understand the underlying principles.

Neuroplasticity refers to structural and functional changes in our nervous system. These changes result from neuronal activity triggered by external stimuli or internal feedback. They lead to modifications in neuronal patterns. Thus, plasticity is an intrinsic property of the human brain, an evolutionary invention that allows the nervous system to escape the limitations of its own genome, as not every neural connection is genetically predetermined. This allows for adaptation to environmental conditions, physiological changes, intrinsic desires, and experiences.

Numerous studies suggest that experience-dependent neuroplasticity is largely mediated by the formation of new synapses, changes in dendritic branching, and changes in non-neuronal cells such as glial cells. These changes go beyond mere structural modifications and include changes in neurotransmitter release. As a result, our neural hardware and software are subject to continuous changes.

From birth until about the age of 25, the young brain is a plasticity machine. This developmental plasticity is largely a passive process, primarily requiring exposure to environmental conditions. However, even in adulthood, the emotional circuits are not fixed. They show a high degree of malleability and elasticity, retaining these changes. The underlying processes, however, differ significantly.

Early changes in life can occur through passive exposure, although attention and focus promote neuroplastic changes. Later in life, conscious attention to stimuli, the significance of these stimuli for the organism, and regular repetition are crucial for neuroplastic changes. We must turn to a completely different mechanism to create plasticity. Plasticity becomes a more actively controlled process. This does not mean that no passively induced changes occur; they are simply rarer and less effective as our nervous system is overall more stable.

This is because plastic changes are metabolically expensive. For the developing juvenile brain, this is a particularly rewarding evolutionary investment. For the adult brain, there is more of a balance between stability and neuroplasticity. This results in a brain that is both firm and reliable where it can be, as well as adaptable where it must be. Inducing changes requires energy, which must be consciously provided.

Differences in the susceptibility of neural circuits to changes in youth and adulthood can be attributed to fundamental differences in neural structure, including the arrangement of cells and dendrites, myelination, cell adhesion molecules, and glial cells. Furthermore, the molecular environment of the young brain is different: with age, enzymes that once supported neural changes are replaced by enzymes that ensure neural stability.

The main components for consciously (“top-down”) initiated neuroplasticity are exposure, attention, focus, and rest. The first step is exposing yourself to relevant stimuli, such as athletic activities or any other type of activity in which you want to improve your performance. The second step in neuroplasticity is recognizing that you want to change something. Your brain will not change without a selective shift of your conscious attention to what you want to change. Neuroplasticity, therefore, begins with conscious self-awareness. The third step is to focus and direct this focus on the object of change. It’s about creating a focused spotlight of attention and changing it in a controlled manner. Neuroplasticity is driven by specific molecules (neurotransmitters) such as epinephrine and acetylcholine, which have increased concentrations in these states favorable to neuroplasticity. Finally, training and learning only provide the stimuli for nervous system adaptation. The adaptation itself takes place after training. Here, rest and sleep come into play. The question then arises how we can positively influence these ingredients to improve our neuroplastic abilities.

We need to be attentive to focus, and we need to focus to change connections at the cellular level. Not every experience changes the brain; only experiences followed with extreme attention, set into intense focus, and spaced out with rest. Meditation can be defined as a form of mental training aimed at improving psychological skills such as attention, focus, self-awareness, and emotional self-regulation, working memory, and all other types of higher executive functions. These skills not only manifest during meditation practice but become stable traits in everyday life with sufficient practice. Thus, improved conscious attention and focus directly transfer to training. Therefore, meditation techniques targeting these mental skills are highly suitable techniques for stimulating neuroplastic effects in the context of sports. The more intense the conscious attention and focus, the stronger the changes, and the better the lasting training effect.

Even a few minutes of daily practice have surprising effects. The more hours you practice, the greater the measurable effects. Improved attention and focus anchor themselves in neuroplastic changes with sufficient practice. The brain regions most consistently associated with the effects of mental training on attention are the anterior cingulate cortex, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the striatum. The posterior cingulate cortex and the insular cortex show a higher connection to the process of perception. All these areas show increased activation during meditation and, more importantly, at rest. In addition to individual brain areas, whole networks, including nodes and connections involved in focusing and maintaining and controlling conscious attention, work significantly more effectively. Thus, the orchestrated interplay of brain regions is also crucial. Research on controlling our attention shows, for example, that the anterior cingulate cortex and the striatum play a crucial role in maintaining the state, while the insular cortex plays an essential role in switching between states.

The ability to consciously be aware and concentrate is significantly influenced by our sleep rhythm. Without adequate rest and sleep, our awareness suffers, and we can hardly concentrate. The plasticity of the nervous system depends on how awake or tired we are.

Moreover, studies show that while small improvements are possible immediately after training, relevant and lasting training effects develop only during the first night of sleep. While most sleep-dependent motor learning occurs on the first night after training, additional nights of sleep still provide continuous improvements.

The consolidation of our memory – converting labile memory traces into stable long-term representations – is facilitated by sleep. During sleep, there is a repeated playback of neuronal activity patterns that occurred during wakefulness. Studies show increased activity during sleep, especially in brain areas that were particularly active during training.

Our rest and sleep behavior is influenced by both our central and peripheral autonomic nervous system. Body and mind must come to rest to achieve sufficiently long and deep sleep, which is essential for neuroplastic changes. At this point, various techniques of mental training can help, especially those with a calming effect. Meditation-based approaches combined with breathing techniques have proven particularly effective in studies, especially for athletes who often have difficulty relaxing due to physical exertion.